I feel bad that I haven't written in this blog in a while. It's hard to make the case that "I AM SRS BLOGGR" when I rarely ever write. But, fear not - I have been running, and that's what's most important!
I want to talk about two runs I did this weekend. On Friday after work I did a 20-minute run. The weather was great and as I was into the home stretch, I found myself thinking: something is different this time. This run, it's....it's.....not as hard as usual. In fact, right now, it's not hard at all. Normally by this point in my runs, my legs are tired, I'm running slow, and I'm just trying to get to the end. But I realized that at that moment, I wasn't tired, and I was actually running a little bit faster than normal. Well, hot damn, I thought, I'm making progress! I'm getting better! I can actually feel my runs getting a little bit easier! I'm finally seeing results!
My next run was my "long run" on Sunday morning (okay, to be fair, since I'm so new to running and can't run very far or fast yet, at this point in my training the "long run" isn't really that much longer than my 20 minute runs). I was riding high from that great run on Friday evening. Invigorated by how much easier that run had been than normal, I burst out onto the road on Sunday morning, expecting this run to be just as successful as the Friday night run.
But it wasn't, and I knew it within minutes of starting. Before I even made it out of the neighborhood my legs were tired. The uptick in pace that I felt on Friday evening was not going to be happening today - I was back to running really slow, and even then, I spent most of the run waiting for it to be over. There were times, around that dreaded midway point, where I honestly wondered how I'd get through the last half without stopping. It wasn't a terrible run, and no, I never stopped to walk - but it felt like I'd gone back in time to when I just started training, and all the progress I felt like I'd made was just some sort of illusion. What??
I understand that training is not a perfectly linear progress and that every once in a while, I will have bad days and setbacks. But sometimes I can't help but wonder: is this just a routine setback that happens to all runners, or am I just not going to get better? Maybe I am just not good at this.
And I also wonder, what could I be doing wrong in my training? There's advice everywhere for the best ways to do things, but it's starting to make me feel like I'm on information overload. What to eat, what to wear, when to run, where to run, when to focus on speed and distance, etc etc. There's no possible way I can know what works best for me until I try it out, but I don't want to find a schedule or technique that works well for me only to learn it was actually working against me in my training. Sometimes I'm just like, "arrrggg, I thought running was supposed to be simpler than other forms of exercise??"
When I think about it, there are explanations for why Friday's run was an unexpected success and why Sunday morning's fell flat. When I ran on Friday, it was in the evening, so I had eaten two meals already that day. On Sunday I hadn't eaten anything yet. Also, on Friday, I had that boost of energy from knowing my week was over and I had the whole weekend ahead of me.
I don't know exactly why some runs go well and some don't. But, at the end of the day, I guess all I can do is continue to navigate my training: enjoy those unexpected good runs, and don't get beaten up by the bad ones.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Cleanse
As a former anti-runner, who believed that I just wasn't cut out for running and that it just wasn't the right form of exercise for me, a big part of my journey is shedding those misconceptions by not only learning to enjoy running, but also letting it open doors for me in ways I couldn't have imagined before. You should be seeing many of those on this blog as I continue to immerse myself in running.
One of the things I now love about running is that feeling of the cleanse. Adult life is full of so much clutter - material clutter, mental clutter, emotional clutter, information clutter. Sorting through all of it to find a way to be happy and figure out where you're going is a daunting task for all of us. But when I'm running, I feel a lot of that clutter melt away. I feel like I'm taking a shower and watching the metaphorical dirt pour off of me. Running, to me, is a great way to cut through all of the life clutter and take a short cut to the happier, simpler simpler sense of being I crave every day. The endorphin high can combat all of the noise, all the pressures and influences telling me that the way to happiness is by buying better clothes or spending more time on social media or joining more activities or redecorating my house or going through some other herculean effort to "reinvent" myself. Exercise - especially running, where I have so much to work for and accomplish - makes me realize that I don't need all of that. It makes me see everything so much more clearly.
When I'm running everything comes into focus and I realize that this is the way: making myself healthier and stronger. I may get sweatier, but inside I am cleaner. And I can tell, each time I run, that as long as I keep doing this, other things will fall into place. I'll get healthier, my diet will improve, my life will fall into more of a routine, and I'll be more productive and feel more revitalized. I look forward to my runs because they make everything come into focus and they give me that positive boost that no amount of money, information, or anything else can.
So, this is one of the reasons I've found to stick with running. The first was the sense of accomplishment and working toward a goal; my newest one is this, the sense of being cleansed.
One of the things I now love about running is that feeling of the cleanse. Adult life is full of so much clutter - material clutter, mental clutter, emotional clutter, information clutter. Sorting through all of it to find a way to be happy and figure out where you're going is a daunting task for all of us. But when I'm running, I feel a lot of that clutter melt away. I feel like I'm taking a shower and watching the metaphorical dirt pour off of me. Running, to me, is a great way to cut through all of the life clutter and take a short cut to the happier, simpler simpler sense of being I crave every day. The endorphin high can combat all of the noise, all the pressures and influences telling me that the way to happiness is by buying better clothes or spending more time on social media or joining more activities or redecorating my house or going through some other herculean effort to "reinvent" myself. Exercise - especially running, where I have so much to work for and accomplish - makes me realize that I don't need all of that. It makes me see everything so much more clearly.
When I'm running everything comes into focus and I realize that this is the way: making myself healthier and stronger. I may get sweatier, but inside I am cleaner. And I can tell, each time I run, that as long as I keep doing this, other things will fall into place. I'll get healthier, my diet will improve, my life will fall into more of a routine, and I'll be more productive and feel more revitalized. I look forward to my runs because they make everything come into focus and they give me that positive boost that no amount of money, information, or anything else can.
So, this is one of the reasons I've found to stick with running. The first was the sense of accomplishment and working toward a goal; my newest one is this, the sense of being cleansed.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
From Point A to Point B
I know this will seem like a long time coming to all of my runner friends, but my run on Saturday was the first time I ever did a "destination run", aka, running from one place to another. Normally my runs are just for X minutes or Y miles, and I'm either running randomly around park trails, or in the future when it's too cold to run outside, running laps on a track, or (please! don't judge!) on the treadmill on the gym.
I never realized how much different the experience is when you're actually running to get to a specific place.
This weekend, the number of miles I wanted to run happened to coincide perfectly with the distance to our neighborhood Farmer's Market, which I wanted to peruse that morning. Great - I could run to the market and kill two birds with one stone!
And, I did it! I didn't run fast but I ran the entire way. I didn't stop to walk. And when I finally got to the park and was rewarded with a stunning view of the morning sun over the lake dotted with sailboats, I was shocked that it was over already. It had seemed like it would be sooo much farther and I was amazed how quickly I got there.
Even though this wasn't my fastest or most intense run, it was the most rewarding so far. It transformed running from something that felt like a chore, a task to be checked off a to-do list, into something empowering. Pretty much everywhere seems too far away to run the whole way there, like a big wall in between what's possible and what I can achieve. But I managed to knock one brick out of the wall and now, for the first time, it seems like I can eventually kick the whole thing down. I knew I could bike to the market, or drive there, or even walk there even though it would take forever. I never imagined I could run the whole way there but now, I know I can.
Running from Point A to Point B is a great way to run. It helps you get those miles in without constantly looking down at your watch/app/whatever, and it gives you a bonus feeling of accomplishment in addition to the one you already get from getting a good run in: I didn't just run, I got myself somewhere.
I never realized how much different the experience is when you're actually running to get to a specific place.
This weekend, the number of miles I wanted to run happened to coincide perfectly with the distance to our neighborhood Farmer's Market, which I wanted to peruse that morning. Great - I could run to the market and kill two birds with one stone!
And, I did it! I didn't run fast but I ran the entire way. I didn't stop to walk. And when I finally got to the park and was rewarded with a stunning view of the morning sun over the lake dotted with sailboats, I was shocked that it was over already. It had seemed like it would be sooo much farther and I was amazed how quickly I got there.
Even though this wasn't my fastest or most intense run, it was the most rewarding so far. It transformed running from something that felt like a chore, a task to be checked off a to-do list, into something empowering. Pretty much everywhere seems too far away to run the whole way there, like a big wall in between what's possible and what I can achieve. But I managed to knock one brick out of the wall and now, for the first time, it seems like I can eventually kick the whole thing down. I knew I could bike to the market, or drive there, or even walk there even though it would take forever. I never imagined I could run the whole way there but now, I know I can.
Running from Point A to Point B is a great way to run. It helps you get those miles in without constantly looking down at your watch/app/whatever, and it gives you a bonus feeling of accomplishment in addition to the one you already get from getting a good run in: I didn't just run, I got myself somewhere.
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